LA Asks AOS 93 Towns For Help

Lincoln Academy wants the towns of the Central Lincoln County School System (AOS 93) to help it weather “a perfect storm” brought on by the recession and a dramatic slide in enrollment.

Lincoln Academy Head of School Jay Pinkerton made his pitch during a presentation about the high school’s future to members of the towns’ school boards Jan. 30.

The immediate future includes ambitious plans to add a residential program for international students and build an applied technology and engineering facility, as well as concerns about sharp budget cuts tied to changing demographics.

The independent Newcastle high school is running a home stay pilot program with six students from China. Next year, the program will grow to include “as many as 12” students, including students from China, Europe and “maybe” South America, Pinkerton said.

In the fall of 2013, “we will have 24 students living on campus,” in a renovated Hall House, he said. Finally, in 2014, Lincoln Academy plans to open two or three additional residential buildings.

The school will borrow money to build housing.

“It’s exciting and scary at the same time,” Pinkerton said of the burgeoning program. “It’s kind of a courageous step to go down this road.”

Pinkerton also spoke about the ongoing capital campaign for the approximately $1.7 million applied technology and engineering center.

The school may do significant additional fundraising in order to establish an endowment to help offset the cost of additional staff, utilities and other operations costs for the center.

Six years ago, during Pinkerton’s first year at the helm, Lincoln Academy had more than 610 students. Today, the number is 506. Pinkerton expects non-residential enrollment to plummet to 360 by the fall of 2014.

From the 2010-11 academic year to the present, enrollment dropped by 50, leaving Pinkerton with a budget hole of almost $500,000.

Every year, Pinkerton has reduced staff, held pay increases to a bare minimum and squeezed more students into some classes, but the austerity measures haven’t been enough.

The school still lacks funds for necessary maintenance and repair, including new windows and a new roof for the math wing, not to mention capital projects, like a new lobby/office area, a new soccer field and an addition to the Parker B. Poe Theater.

Pinkerton talked about other ways he is attempting to plug the budget gap, like lobbying Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen to change the state formula for calculating tuition rates.

Because Lincoln Academy is a private school, it can collect only a state-established tuition from sending towns plus an “insured value factor” of 5 percent.

Pinkerton asked the AOS 93 towns to “think about supporting your 9-12 students like you do your K-8.” The towns have the ability to help by restoring the amount of the insured value factor to 10 percent or supporting specific programs, like 1:1 computing, established in 2010 as a result of a large, anonymous donation.

“Our help needs to come locally,” Pinkerton said.

Lincoln Academy and other independent schools received a 10 percent insured value factor prior to 2009. The state legislature, in an attempt to “soften the blow” of shrinking education subsidies to municipalities, cut the required factor to 5 percent in 2009 and has extended the cut annually since. Towns retain the option, however, to pay 10 percent.

Pinkerton estimates Lincoln Academy’s annual loss of revenue as a result of the cut at $200,000-$230,000.

“I want to have a quality program in place for the students who are in kindergarten right now, first grade, second grade, like we have for years,” Pinkerton said. “We’re trying our best to do more with less, like every other school in the country, but it’s getting really, really hard.”